Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

[Drew]

A machine (Dell PowerEdge R710) just came in that had water damage to it a while back. It won't boot but the led's on the motherboard light up. Tried the troubleshooting method in the manual for if the machine got wet but that didn't work. Wondering if anyone has a any solutions or ideas on how to get this machine up and running again.


Edit: Here is the manual:
Page 156 has the troubleshooting instructions for a wet system.

[Toasty]

Re: Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

How wet? Wet as in flood, fire system, or high humidity/steam? Sea water involved?

Probably going to have to take it apart and look for corrosion on and around all the boards, RAM sockets, CPU's. Under chips & sockets, anywhere it can hide. Check the battery and BIOS where that small constant voltage can cause corrosion. Remove any socketed chips and inspect. Magnifier needed.

Maybe a PSU problem?

Toast

[Drew]

Re: Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

How wet? Wet as in flood, fire system, or high humidity/steam? Sea water involved?

Probably going to have to take it apart and look for corrosion on and around all the boards, RAM sockets, CPU's. Under chips & sockets, anywhere it can hide. Check the battery and BIOS where that small constant voltage can cause corrosion. Remove any socketed chips and inspect. Magnifier needed.

Maybe a PSU problem?

Toast

From what I recall it was the result of a burst pipe or some flooding on the floor above the servers. I am not sure of the amount of water that the systems received due to my involvement with this company occuring far after (6-7 months) this event occured.

[Toasty]

Re: Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

Okay. So not salt water, a good thing. But, units were on (?) when this occurred so that could be bad.

You're going to have to strip them down and go over very carefully - fine tooth comb type of inspection.

Toast

[Drew]

Re: Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

Okay. So not salt water, a good thing. But, units were on (?) when this occurred so that could be bad.

You're going to have to strip them down and go over very carefully - fine tooth comb type of inspection.

Toast

Not sure if they were on when it happened, but they were almost brand new at the time. It's still under warranty so it isn't a big deal. Was just wondering if anyone knew of a quick little solution to the problem. Thanks for your time and input on this.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

Pull the motherboards out and clean them per Topcat's Mean Green method. See if they come back to life.

[Drew]

Re: Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

Was looking thoroughly at the motherboard and found a scorch mark. Dell warranty is expired apparently and a replacement of the current board in there is $950. So, I'm looking for a replacement server motherboard that doesn't go higher then say $400. It needs to have dual 1366 socket and support intel eon E5500 processor. I have 6 sticks of ram that is hynix 2gb ddr3 8500E, so there has to be at least 6 DIMM slots. I've looked at some asus boards and some intel boards and so far the cheapest has been $260 for the asus Z8NA-D6C found on newegg. Just giving an update on whats going on and if anyone has suggestions be free to leave them here.

[Toasty]

Re: Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

Scorch mark where? A picture would be helpful. Fixable perhaps??

[Drew]

Re: Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

Scorch mark where? A picture would be helpful. Fixable perhaps??

The scorch mark, seemed to be caused by a fried circuit, is by the back panel connectors on one of the very tinychips. I looked around that area more and saw more water damage, white marks on the board(I'm guessing it's corrosion?). The current objective I was given by my boss is to find a replacement board that would be compatible with all the other devices that are in the machine. I have no pictures, still in the process of getting a camera) but I'll try and put up a picture of the motherboard with the spots that have damage labeled. Other then that suggestions are still welcome for a replacement board.

[ratdude747]

Re: Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

suggestions:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131378

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813151193

within price limit...

where in the us do you live? city and state? (curious)

[gg1978]

Re: Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

I think you'll be buying your board from Dell, if anywhere.. R710's a 2U rackmount, as we've got one for our new Exchange 2010 server.. Sorry about your luck though, that does suck..

[seanc]

Re: Water Damage to Dell PowerEdge R710

By the sounds of it, the OP is looking to put a new board with the parts from the Dell into another case. I think he'd struggle to get any board other than a Dell into the R710 case.

A picture of the damage would help.